Van-Far has held plenty of concerts but none bigger than the one in late June.

The school district sent nearly 100 students, ranging from preschool age to graduated seniors, to the June 28 St. Louis Cardinals game against the Cincinnati Reds at Busch Stadium for a performance of “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” during the seventh-inning stretch.

Elementary music teacher Kay Bunge said Van-Far had students sing “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” at a Cardinals game back in 2017. Van-Far also appeared for performances of “God Bless America” in 2012 and “The Star Spangled Banner” with a small instrumental ensemble in 2014.

“I had a friend at a music educators conference, and her school’s did it,” Bunge said while explaining how this year’s performance came into fruition. “I contacted her, and she gave me the representative she used. I called him and asked if we could be part of it.”

Bunge further explained that schools interested have to turn in 30 dates the school can do and then the Cardinals pick the school, the date they perform and what song they will perform out of the aforementioned three. She said she wanted Van-Far to perform before the school’s fiscal year ended on July 1.

Typically, Bunge said the schools that perform every year have priority and then it’s the schools that have done it in the past. Van-Far fell in the later category so the school got its wish of performing before July 1.

“We had to go down in the fifth inning to the ramp to get organized and then go into the tunnel,” Bunge said. “We missed the fifth, sixth and seventh innings.”

After returning to teaching in 2022 from retirement in 2020, Bunge was asked to arrange for Van-Far to perform at the Cardinals game again to create memories for more kids. Bunge taught the oldest kids and even the preschool kids after taking on preschool responsibilities this past year. 

The familiarity was there for Bunge, but now the kids needed practice. That step lasted at least six weeks covering many practices and even in spring concerts, allowing the kids to take the Van-Far community out to the ballgame before they would go there in late June. 

“We started in February and concerts were in May,” Bunge said. “We had one practice at the end of summer school where anybody who was planning to come could come and practice. Practice with some of them, not all of them all together except for in the tunnel right before going out. That was the only practice all together.”

Bunge said her kids performed well on a night the Cardinals won 1-0 and didn’t show much nerves mostly because it was a quick in-and-out onto the field. Van-Far was ushered onto the field quickly, took about 35 seconds for the song and was briskly sent back, leaving little time to be nervous.

That doesn’t mean there wasn’t some difficulty corralling such a large group of kids, however. Bunge said that is natural with so many kids in one place but went as smoothly as possible.

“They told us we had to be quiet in the tunnel. That was not possible,” Bunge said. “They did pretty good. We had to line up 20 in a row, and we stood behind the gate in right field. As soon as it came up, (the representative) said, ‘Now, get out there fast.’ The little ones were holding hands. That’s kind of cute.”

The Van-Far community came out to the ballgame as well, Bunge said, in the form of 400 people that covered a stadium section. She said the tickets were sold by May 1 so she can’t forget how much support there was from the community — including all of the parents — that day and is grateful for everybody that showed up. Bunge’s gratitude extends to the elementary school’s secretaries that had to set up spreadsheets to stay organized.

“The secretaries had the most work. They had to take the money, keep track and were like, ‘Don’t do that to me again,’” Bunge said, jokingly. “I think they would if I wanted to.”

Bunge said she is glad to have been part of every Van-Far performance at Busch Stadium in a little more than the last decade. A fifth-grader who is a big Cardinals fan and excitement like that is a big reason why Bunge enjoys this so much.

“The kids were pretty excited,” Bunge said. “There is a fifth-grade boy who is such a big Cardinal fan. We would talk baseball a lot. I told him, ‘You better make sure to go because that is once-in-a-lifetime where you get to go out on the field.’ He was there, and it was great to see them all together.”